Wednesday, October 31, 2012

And The Wind Whispers "Wednesday"

Ostensibly this is a humorous blog. However, there are times when even the most fatuous blogger must put on his reporter's fedora and play the journalist. So with Sandy bearing down on New York City like an EPO-addled peloton on a doomed breakaway, I set out on my bicycle to document the storm and its aftermath, and you can view all my photographs here.

Yeah, right. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you should know perfectly well by now that I'm the sort of person who spent the duration of the storm sobbing under a table and then only ventured outside about forty minutes ago when my cravings for fresh bagels finally became too strong to resist. Even then, while walking, I made sure to stay as close to devoutly religious people as possible, figuring that just in case "God" exists He'd be less likely to smite the devout with falling tree branches. (By the way, despite their many differences, one similarity between Orthodox Jews and Muslims is that they both object very strongly to being shadowed by cowardly bloggers.)

Fortunately though there was a real bike blogger imported from Portland in the form of Jonathan Maus of BikePortland to take up the slack, and while I was simpering and whimpering he was out investigating:

A picture like this would be the culmination of my entire blogging career. Meanwhile, this guy hops off a plane and bags it as easily as a slice of pizza. I mean, I knew I sucked, but it's still humbling to realize exactly how deeply I suck:

Still, at least I'm enough of a journalist to visit the HarderBikes website, where I learned that this is a "prone" bike:

Here's the backstory, which reads more like a cautionary tale:

The beginning was a single-speed mountain bike geared up for a rapid commute with a little suspension, front and back. As time went on, the gearing rose, pedals clipped and softtail gave way to hardtail with a suspension seatpost. Once speeds grew to a point where the bikepath was no longer a welcome home, the bike had to be made more demanding. Thoughts wandered to charging full time and how to make a ride for that purpose. No matter how far the bars and stem were lengthened and dropped, very little weight could be shifted to the upper body with tradition frame geometry.Hence, the project. Since the saddle wasn't necessary, the prototype frame was simple once the angles were chosen. A steeper head angle and short rear "triangle" helped balance out the lengthed wheelbase created by the elongated cockpit. The downtube was stretched 12 inches longer than that of a 21" mountain bike frame. a short headtube and mild bottom bracket drop kept the posture as aggressive as possible.

First you're "slamming that stem," next you're getting an even longer one, and before you know it you're ridin' doggy style. Still, I'd like to congratulate the designer for inventing the exact opposite of a practical bicycle--though it's still no H-Zontal:

The H-Zontal is the "Dark Side Of The Moon" of prone bicycles.

Speaking of the storm, by about 4:00pm on Monday it was rapidly approaching full strength. Outside the window the trees were thrashing about like mullets at a Slayer concert, and with each flicker of the lights I waited for the power outage that, amazingly, never came. I also checked Twitter for news updates, and at exactly 4:26pm I saw this:

Others to have received the honour include Cher, who sold her key on eBay for close to $93,000 earlier this year, the Dalai Lama and comedian Barry Humpries who is perhaps best known as Dame Edna Everage.

And because last year they went all the way to Austin to give Armstrong his key, only to find him not at home:

In 2011, Yarwood travelled to the US to hand-deliver the key to Armstrong, with Adelaide rate-payers covering the partial cost of the trip however, the American was not in residence in Texas. The key was later posted to him.

If I were an Adelaidean taxpayer I'd be really, really fucking irritated by now, since apparently this key racket is costing the city a fortune and the only person actually benefitting financially from it is Cher.

By the way, I'm also fairly sure that the Dalai Lama's key was accepted by Barry Humphries, who looks exactly like His Holiness when he's not in drag:

(Humpries as Dame Edna (L) and out of costume (R).)

Or maybe it was the other way around and they actually gave Dame Edna's key to the Dalai Lama in drag. When you give away so many sets of spare keys it gets very difficult to keep track.

Can anyone help me out? I know this sounds kind of lame but I am not well versed in social marketing. I would like to send a message to everyone that really loves cycling. I do not use twitter and do not have an organized way of getting some of my own "rage" out.

LeMond is certainly entitled to bask in his moment of glory, but has anyone reminded him that he does use Twitter?

--Came up in the East German sports program alongside men who ate Volgas and women with beards;

--Turned pro the year before the Festina affair;

--Rode for Bjarne Riis;

--Rode for Johan Bruyneel.

Yet during that time he "never saw anything firsthand," which means he's somehow missed out on the biggest moments in modern sports doping history despite being right in the middle of pretty much all of them. In other words, he's basically the anti-Forrest Gump.

As for me, I've become jaded, which is why I now only follow bike racing for the costumes--like this one:

The guy at the Surf City Cyclocross is what we call a Lone Wolf's helper. You know like the guy with the red suit and fake beard at the mall because you know Santa can't be everywhere at once. And there is only one true Lone Wolf.

Dude, have you actually read any religious documents lately? It's usually the religious folks that god/the gods are trying to zap with the natural disaster, usually because their religion has become corrupt. You wanna stay as far away from them as possible. As for Jens--is an athlete in any sport who professes innocence of doping even noteworthy these days? If it means anything, it means he's about to be busted and wants to get the first word in.

"So with Sandy bearing down on New York City like an EPO-addled peloton on a doomed breakaway". Why is it that the breakaway'ers are the only ones stupid enuff not to take EPO? It's why they get caught 99.9% of the time.

Harderbikes should look at trials bikes. I think the geometry of their bike comes pretty close, except it has a saddle. A saddle seems like a good idea to me, then at least you have the option of using it. Then you can always show off your sweet tricks after you finish riding the 5 borough bike snore.

Now that the wind has subsided we out-of-towners are relying on you to do your duty and get your ass out on the street. We want the "straight poop" on the chaos and the cannibalism, etc. and how it differs from "normal" NYC life. I hypothesize a large increase in actual bicycle use until the subway returns; this should provide endless amusement tinged with angst as cyclists are flattened in hideous ways. Good luck to all.

Dave: I had a dream of a cycling paradise, everyone on bicycles since no one can ride the train. I thought Sandy would have turned NY into a great cycling city like one of those ones in the northern part of that country Europe. Unfortunately on my ride into Manhattan from Queens today the bridge was swarmed with hoards of pedestrians who could not seem to grasp the idea of two separate lanes for bikes and foot traffic. Some a-hole cyclists just tore down the crowded path pissing people off. At the bottom of the bridge I saw a guy cross the path in front of a cyclist without looking, who fell off his bike and hit his head on the curb while trying to avoid the idiot. However the cyclist was not wearing a helmet so it is obviously his own fault. No more bikes than normal, just more ignorant pedestrians and more cars on the road. It was very disappointing.

"Sandy has brought a feast to their feet. New sources of food are washing out of the waterways and along flooded streets, including loads of rotting trash, other rats, pigeons, and fish. The well-fed rats will burrow beneath buildings under cover of night to establish new homes, sliding into holes as small as a half inch (1.3 centimeters)—the width of their skulls—even though their bodies can measure up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) long."

I'm on a roll with getting my comments deleted on things the Snob links to.

First the Budnitz video and now Maus's "People on Bikes" photo expo.

I ragged on the fixie guy in his last one for being a jerk, and everyone else for being uncomfortable.

Lots more sit-up and beg bikes in the Brooklyn photo-way, which is nice to see. Actual ethnic diversity, which is pretty funny when compared with the Portland photos. And a happy fixie bike guy who also needs to attach an "oh shit" handle to his bike. But at least he's grinning.

Wow! That "prone bike" by "HarderBikes" is just nuts. Who wants to end every ride mad & worn out?

In my younger days I would do things "the hard way." In fact, I could dial one of those old rotary phones "the hard way" [if you know what I mean]. Nowadays, I'm happy just to be able to "do it" once or twice a week [I mean ride a regular bike, of course, and I meant every day].

I stumbled across your blog while looking for something else, but I’m glad I did because I like your witty writing style. I’m an Aussie who lives in Melbourne (btw, did you create the term ‘Adelaidean’ while writing this post?) because despite not being one of the tax payers in the Lance Armstrong article, I was furious at the stupidity of the Adelaide government who sent Yarwood to Austin to hand deliver a key without first checking if the recipient would be home! I’m not sure what disappoints me most, sending Yarwood to Austin or writing about it on the Internet for the whole world to see how stupid the people involved with running Australia are!

don't worry, i'm sure lance armstrong was enjoying the tsunami warning we (hawaii) had while the east coast was bracing for sandy. turned out to be nothing (i'm sure you've heard) but the local news scared us shitless with the tsunami trajectory photos: http://coconutgirlwireless.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/tsunami-trajectory.jpeg hope things in new york, where the *real* storm hit, are getting better.

Harderbikes should look at trials bikes. I think the geometry of their bike comes pretty close, except it has a saddle. A saddle seems like a good idea to me, then at least you have the option of using it. Then you can always show off your sweet tricks after you finish riding the 5 borough bike snore.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!